Life is Good.

There’s a kind of freedom in the early morning. the sun is only just peeking over the houses to my left and the house is in silence, just the occasional floorboard creak as my kids turn over in bed. I can think and be what I want to be… well, almost…

It’s a Tuesday but due to the Bank Holiday yesterday the Bin men will be coming round today, so instead of sitting down and getting on with a chapter, I have to trudge outside and put the rubbish out.

Black Bags far end of the grass strip next to our garden wall.
Recycling middle.
Food Waste just outside the gate.

I go to empty the kitchen caddy and curse as I find that the leftover beef bourguignon from last night’s dinner hadn’t been put into the fridge… and even worse, that one of the cats (I’m glaring at Gizmo at this point) has been helping himself to it. He doesn’t like mushrooms so they’ve been thrown on the floor and shreds of beef are all over the counter.

Muttering, I clean it up, dump the rest of the leftovers into the caddy and tie the bag up dropping it into the food waste bin, still glaring at Gizmo who has come outside with me and is sunning himself innocently on the decking.

Nappy bin needs emptying. The bag has been damaged so I have to double bag it or risk the black bag men scattering nappies everywhere when they heave the bag into their lorry. They won’t pick them up if it does happen, so I’m not risking it. It gets heaved outside to the pile.

I do a sweep of the kitchen with my eyes and smile.

Then I glance out the window and realise there’s two more things to curse cats for. The first is needing to black bag the dead cat litter bags that my son has thoughtfully piled up in one corner of the garden for me. The second is that one of the local cats has paid us a visit and has left a present in the Japanese Maple’s pot.

I hate that cat.

I black bag the dead cat litter bags and clean the mess out of the pot, putting it into another bag and throwing it in with the rest. That black bag gets tied up and I’m done.

I can finally enjoy the peace of the early morning I have been given…

I water the plants and discover that the ornamental cherry tree I had for Mother’s Day a couple of years back has grown cherries… tiny black cherries, glistening in the new sunlight. While I’m there, movement on the Rose Bush next to it attracts my attention. A spider swings frantically from her web, knocked off the bush by the water I had sprinkled.

I wish her good hunting and realise that even though the bush has gathered whitefly, there are a half dozen flower buds waiting to bloom. In my tiny portable greenhouse, the Bell Pepper Seedlings are attempting to fill the space with their leaves. My Christmas Cactus and the Soft Spined Cactus seem to shrug away from them

A bird whizzes past over my head and Gizmo jumps up, but it’s gone before he can even gather himself to chase it.

I come back inside to the quiet of the house, shooing Gizmo in in front of me, and think as I sit down at the keyboard, “Life is good.”

#GNUTerry Pratchett

'We keep that name moving in the Overhead,' he said, and it seemed to Princess that the wind in the shutter arrays above her blew more forlornly, and the everlasting clicking of the shutters grew more urgent. 'He'd never have wanted to go home. He was a real linesman. His name is in the code, in the wind in the rigging and the shutters. Haven't you ever heard the saying “A man's not dead while his name is still spoken”?'

- Going Postal by Sir Terry Pratchett

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His name will never be forgotten as long as his name is written. 12th March 2015